


Sleeping space

by Woozletania



Series: Sanctuary [5]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Post-Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 23:54:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15230826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woozletania/pseuds/Woozletania
Summary: The loss of Rocket's little round bed awakens in the raccoon an animal instinct he never knew he had.This story takes place after Living with Rocket 3.





	Sleeping space

Finding Rocket asleep in his sock drawer didn't make Peter mad, or worried. The little raccoon's sleeping habits hadn't quite caught up with current events, was all. 

No sooner had they got the Milano flying again after Ego than a Kree privateer blew another hole in the ship. Rocket's little round "Travel bed for anthropomorphs, size four" had been sucked into the void. For the second time in a month they'd gone through a near depressurization and lots of other stuff went out the hole in the hull too, luckily not including any of them. 

Now they were settling in on the Quadrant and had ten times more space they had before. The Milano was a sad wreck on the hangar deck they still talked about repairing, but all they'd done so far was gather up what of their personal possessions survived. The Quadrant's hanger was stocked with a dozen assorted vessels so they weren't pressing the issue. One of these days they'd get around to fixing it.

Some hadn't quite adjusted yet and Rocket was one of them, not having picked a Quadrant cabin of his own. He was used to his little private spaces and both of those were gone now, his workbench blown to bits by the Sovereign and now his bed gone as well.

So when Peter saw the fuzzy curled-up shape in the half open drawer he just smiled. It was adorable. Not that he'd tell Rocket that. Rocket didn't react well when someone thought of him as "cute". It smacked of being disrespected and that was Rocket's #1 berserk button.

Call him an animal? Disrespect. Thoughtlessly stroke his fur, as one would a pet? Disrespect. Claim he couldn't be useful because he was small and weird? Disrespect. All Rocket really wanted was to be treated as a person and damn it, he deserved it. He was one of the best pilots Pete ever met and though Star-Lord was a good mechanic in his own right he couldn't hold a candle to Rocket. On top of all that he was a crack shot and master tactician too. There was a lot going on in that furry little three-foot-tall package. How it got there was a horrible tale all its own but if you looked past that what you saw a very competent, very useful, very dependable - if, for understandable reasons, often angry - man.

Who was still absolutely adorable curled up in a sock drawer and Peter carefully reached past the warm, sleeping body and grabbed a pair of socks. He couldn't resist pausing to pet Rocket, something he normally reserved for calming the raccoon's once frequent and thankfully now rare nightmares. They'd gotten past the point where the raccoon would instantly bite you if he caught you doing it though Peter had the scars to show he'd felt those fangs before.

Peter allowed himself just a moment to enjoy the feel of thick, soft, healthy fur - much thicker and healthier than when they'd met not so long ago, thanks to better food and access to a shower - but it was a moment too long. Rocket yawned and stretched in his sleep and before Star-Lord could extract his socks a little clawed hand strong all out of proportion to its size trapped his own against the raccoon's furry side. Brown-red eyes blinked open alertly. "There better be a good reason your hand's in here when I'm sleepin', Pete."

But he didn't bite or grip down any harder, though his cybernetics made his hands strong enough to crack small bones like, for example, the ones in Peter's fingers. "You're sleeping on my socks, man. I had to get a pair and you were in the way."

"Fine," Rocket growled, and let go. "Just so you weren't petting me or something."

Rocket enjoyed being petted but he'd rarely admit it. All the times he slept in the public areas of the Milano just coincidentally right where someone could easily reach him pointed that out. And they knew damn well he was sometimes wide awake when he lay there soaking up the attention. Once in a while he'd even let you pet him when he was awake. But he was incredibly defensive about his need for comfort and he'd lie if you confronted him about it, just as Peter lied when he claimed he'd only touched the sleeping raccoon accidentally. Diplomacy, it was called. Just enough truth to keep everyone happy.

"Gotta get up anyway," Rocket said as he climbed out of the drawer. "There's a lotta work to do on this junk heap." He pulled on the upper half of his outfit, the part with the thickly armored backplate and the spherical magnet that held his weapon when it wasn't in his hands. There was a time Rocket kept his back hidden lest someone see the marks sloppy surgery left on his body. It always pleased Peter to see the smooth fur where the awful scars once showed. All that was left of that horror was a series of polished bolts and an access port for inserting a probe into his cybernetics. 

"You know the rules, Rock," Peter said good-naturedly as he himself dressed. "You have to be at two meals a day where we can see you eat and I better find you sacked out someplace around shift end. We're not in an emergency situation, I'm not having you work until you drop for no good reason."

"Aye aye cap'n," the raccoon grumped. He got so lost in his tinkering they'd sometimes find him stretched out on the metal deck plates, fast asleep where he'd been working. He used to carry his round padded bed around for these occasions but it was lost somewhere in space along with many other bits of the Milano. "Ship needs work, is all, and we don't have enough people."

That was the exact subject raised around the breakfast table a little while later.

"We need," Gamora said as she jabbed a knife into the casserole in the middle of the table, "More crew."

"That's true and it's a fact," Kraglin said from his seat next to Mantis. "Ship this size should have thirty crew, minimum. More like fifty. Everyone's workin' like crazy just keeping her goin'."

"We would have less to do if our taskmaster didn't want to take the ship apart just to see how it works," Drax rumbled. "I do not object to work. I just need to know it is worthwhile and not some...hobby."

"We talked about this," Peter said. Luckily Rocket's mouth was full. "Kraglin can run the Quadrant but he wasn't one of the mechanics assigned to it. Ravager ships like this one are patchworks, made out of pieces of other vessels. Rocket is taking it apart not because of some mechanical fetish," Mostly, he thought. Probably? "But because we need to know how it's put together to fix it if it takes a hit. I know you spent a week on the drives alone," he indicated Drax, Gamora and of course their furry little taskmaster with his fork, "But it paid off. Acceleration is ten percent better and fuel consumption is down fourteen percent. Fuel costs money, and the less we spend on it the more we get to keep."

Drax opened his mouth, probably to say he didn't care about money, and this time Rocket interrupted him instead of the other way around. 

"I can do it myself," Rocket growled, "But the cap'n here says I can't work more than sixteen hours a day."

"I am Groot!" Said their little sapling indignantly from the far side of the breakfast table.

"I know you're helping," Rocket said. "We wouldn't get half a this stuff done without you bringing us tools." That, too, was a lie. As often as not mini-Groot brought the the wrong tool or got distracted, but you didn't say things like that to a little kid. Diplomacy. Even Rocket was learning some.

Meanwhile Drax shut up because Rocket really was working sixteen hours a day, longer if no one kept an eye on him. They'd had to enforce a daily shower on him or he'd show up covered in grease and smelling of singed fur from welding incidents. Eventually they'd have enough stuff fixed that the workload would ease but in the meantime everyone got sucked into his projects. Kraglin and Peter were working twelve hour days doing their part and the only reason even Mantis wasn't turning a wrench was that no one had time to train her. 

Their new Guardian made up for that by being, by far, the best cook on board. She wasn't going to be just a cook for long but for now she was very useful in that regard.

"We also need," she chimed in, "Food. There is enough to eat but we are running out of spices and fresh vegetables are better than frozen. And I can only prepare orloni so many ways." There was an infestation of the things in the ship's vents and they were solving it very practically by trapping and eating them.

"All right," Peter said with raised hands. "We were planning to pick up new crew anyway and I'll put out some feelers while we're getting supplies. I've just been putting it off because we're a team, right? Breaking in new crew will be work too."

Gamora changed the subject. "Someone," she said as she cut herself another slice of egg, sausage and vegetable casserole, "Has made off with my winter jacket. I don't need it right now but I'd like it to turn up as opposed to being used as a grease rag."

She didn't need to say who she was accusing and once again Rocket's mouth was full so Drax filled the void. "One of my pairs of pants is gone, too. I only have two pairs, you know."

"We know," several people said in unison, because if anyone showed up to meals dirtier than Rocket it was Drax. They'd really rather he changed clothes more often or at least smelled like he did. As the team's strongman he was constantly in demand to shift heavy parts or machinery so they could perform repairs.

"Okay," Rocket admitted. "I got the jacket and the pants. I didn't do it to mess with you, I was workin' and they were hanging out of the laundry hamper."

"You were sleeping on our clothes again, weren't you?" Gamora accused.

Rocket shrugged helplessly. "Look, you know my bed got sucked into space. I just needed something I could take where I work and catch a nap there. What? You got something to add, Mohawk boy?"

Kraglin sat back, his eyes narrowed. "Nothin'," he said. There was a pattern here. Everyone thought it was inconsequential and maybe it was, but the pattern was there and he'd seen it before.  


When Kraglin found Peter in the hall the next day berating Rocket, who had skipped over stealing things from the communal laundry hamper in favor of simply falling asleep in it, he nodded. More evidence.

There was a way to test his hypothesis, and test it he did.

It wasn't hard to arrange some alone time with the raccoon. All he had to do was switch work shifts with Drax. Drax liked Rocket and was almost a father figure for the little raccoon these days but Rocket's habit of bossing you around and using you as a ladder could be wearing even if your skin could withstand his claws. Drax took Groot off to test the point defense cannons and Kraglin took his place assisting Rocket.

Rocket either didn't notice or pretended not to care when Kraglin showed up instead of Drax and together they dug into the guts of the starboard maneuvering thrusters. They barely had the cowling off when Rocket's ears pricked up.

"Somethin'?" Kraglin eyed the raccoon with forced nonchalance as Rocket sniffed. Whiskers twitched and those piercing red-brown eyes turned as Rocket tracked down the odor. It was, of course, coming from Kraglin.

"What is that," the raccoon growled, and Kraglin held up his hands innocently as Rocket approached. That didn't stop Rocket from climbing him like a tree and snatching the scarf from around his neck. Rocket leapt off his shoulder and landed on a work bench, so focused on the scarf he almost skidded off the edge. He had his nose buried in the thing and for a moment his normally fierce eyes were damp.

"You miss him," Kraglin said. "I do too."

"Don't know what you're talking about," Rocket growled. "But you can't wear loose clothes around machinery." He stuffed the scarf into one of his pouches.

"Don't lie to me, boy," Kraglin said. He glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot. "I know what you're doin'. I've seen it before."

Rocket looked up, badly concealed guilt written across his face. He had Yondu's scarf buttoned away in a pouch and tried to put a brave face on it. "C'mon loser, we got work to do."

"I was right there when you tried this on him," Kraglin snapped. "It ain't gonna work on me either. You miss Yondu. An' you feel guilty about him dyin'. Well, I do too, and Pete. But I'm not the one goin' around sleeping on everyone's clothes so you'll smell them and then they'll smell like you."

Rocket had just picked up a tool and froze, hands trembling. With a visible effort of will he steadied himself. "I wouldn't do that. That's a, that's an animal thing. People don't do that."

"Now you listen here, rat." Kraglin pointed a finger. "I know you're one of a kind. But you ain't the only one with animal instincts. We had a Mephitisoid on board for a while, fangs, claws, black and white fur, big fluffy tail, an' when his lover got killed he started doin' the exact same thing you are. There ain't nothing wrong with wanting to get your scent spread around. Sense a smell like yours, you want to know who your friends are by how they smell. There ain't nothing wrong with it but don't tell me you ain't doin' it."

Rocket looked around just as Kraglin had, making sure no one could hear. "Fine, okay. I didn't know I was doing it but maybe you're right. And I do miss that blue jerk. He wasn't bad for a smooth skin."

"No, he wasn't. He was my cap'n." Kraglin thought for a moment. "Look, I wasn't gonna tell anyone this, but I know you're hurtin' too. An' I owe you for fixin' the arrow and helping me get this fin working." He gestured at his cybernetic Mohawk. C'mon."

The Quadrant was many times the size of the Milano but Rocket thought he'd worked out where everything was. Just the same it turned out he'd missed at least one thing. In a narrow passageway just astern of the control room Kraglin pushed in a bolt head no different from a hundred others. There was a click and a section of wall receded then slid to the side.

"There ya go," Kraglin said. "Yondu had these all over the Eclector in case of mutiny. You gotta watch out for that sorta thing when you're a Ravager cap'n. All yours, rat."

Rocket stepped through the door into the closet-sized secret room, eyes bright. He sniffed. There was a narrow bunk with drawers under it, a set of screens most likely hooked up to surveillance cameras all over the Quadrant (and the remainder of the Eclector, now vaporized), a small self contained relief unit and a cube of ration packs. Rocket scuttled over to the bunk and yanked open a drawer, then the second. One was full of weapons and gear but the other was stuffed with an untidy assortment of clothes. Unable to stop himself, Rocket buried his nose in the clothing.

"That's right," Kraglin said from the door. "Yondu's. I was leaving this as a sorta memento but you need a room an' no one's using this one. You can turn the bunk into a workbench and sleep in a drawer if ya like."

"Why?" Kraglin had started to turn away when Rocket spoke. "You coulda just kept this a secret, not given it to me."

"I miss 'im too, rat," Kraglin said. "But I'm not gonna wear his clothes. No one else would either. You're the only person who'll get any use out of them. So go on, you got a bunk now. Or you can use some a the clothes and make yourself a new little bed you can carry around. Anything you want. It's yours."

Rocket paused, the first drawer open and his hands rummaging through the gear with no need of input from his brain. He wasn't sure what this feeling was but he didn't hate it. Gratitude, was it called? Someone he barely knew was being nice to him. What had he done to deserve it?

"Thanks." He wasn't sure he'd ever said that word out loud before. "Now I owe you one. One more thing. Please don't tell the others. I got a reputation ta uphold and I've got enough problems without them knowing about this soft spot."

"You got it, rat."

A day later his little round bed was back, to the eye the same as the last one complete with the embroidered-on 'Rocket' and Ravager symbol. When Peter asked if he'd made it he just shrugged. He'd fabbed more complex stuff using the Quadrant's equipment and eventually everyone assumed that's where he got it.

It was a virtual copy of his old bed, painstakingly stitched together by his clever little hands and Ravager red. They didn't need to know it was made from one of Yondu's stored uniforms or that the stuffing of the raised, padded edge contained purloined socks and other clothing bits from each of the other Guardians. Some of young Groot's cast-off twigs were in there, too. This way, wherever Rocket slept he had the smell of his family close by.

And when he had a really bad day, lost his temper or was haunted by old memories, he'd leave the little bed somewhere and retreat to his new cabin. No one needed to know about it. Most especially they didn't need to know that he was still stealing clothing and had made a nest of it in a pulled-out drawer. Or that he swapped out socks and other trifles from it in exchange for similar items from the other Guardian's wardrobes to spread his scent around and refresh the smell of Pete and the others on his bed.

He was really doing it. He had to admit it now. He liked it when his family smelled like him. And when he smelled them when he went to sleep. Maybe it was an animal instinct, but it made him comfortable. And it wasn't causing any problems because Kraglin kept his mouth shut about the whole thing.

Occasionally he felt guilty about it. Giving in to his animal nature, even a little. Keeping a secret from his family. Because that's what the Guardians were. A family. Then he'd shrug, and mutter to himself:

"I got lotsa problems, but a comfy bed ain't one of them. An' what they don't know won't hurt 'em."


End file.
